If your doctor has you totally written out of work or has you written to restrictions so severe that your employer cannot or will not provide you a job, you are entitled to weekly income benefits. However, if your doctor writes you back to work on some type of limited duty, your employer will likely submit a job description (form WC240a) to your authorized treating physician (ATP) for review. If your doctor agrees to allow you to try the work, you will be asked to come back to the employer and try to work within the doctor's restrictions (normally this procedure is done with what is called a form WC240). If you refuse to go back and try a job your doctor has agreed for you to try, you run the very real risk of losing your Georgia Workers Compensation Benefits. So, NOT going back to try a job your doctor has approved for you to try is a bad idea.
If after trying the job for about a week or less you realize cannot do the job, tell your employer and he will be required to automatically restart your weekly benefits (TTD Benefits). Then, the employer/insurer has the option of taking your case to court to try to prove to the judge that you can do the job. If you wait too long before informing your employer you cannot do the work, you run the risk of having all your income benefits stopped and at which time YOU will be the one filing to go to court to prove to the judge that you cannot do the job.
Trust me, you do not want to be the one with the burden of proof. It's better if the employer/insurer has the burden of proof at the hearing.
So, if your employer has filed a valid WC240 and the doctor says you can try the job, by all means, go try the job. If you can do it, fine. If you cannot, you need to try to figure that out within the first week and inform your employer or possibly run the risk of losing your income benefits and having to file for a hearing which will likely take many months before you actually get in front of a judge. All the while, you are without TTD income benefits. If you need help, contact: KeenerLaw.com
